s attention to their separate origin, plan,
and authorship. When La Rochefoucauld, after the conclusion of the
Fronde and the triumph of Mazarin, retired in dudgeon and disgrace to
his estates, he devoted himself to the writing of memoirs, and the fact
soon became known. He succeeded once in preventing an unauthorised
publication at Rouen. But the Elzevirs (who were as much princes of
piracy as of printing) were beyond his reach, and in 1662 there appeared
a book purporting to be the Memoirs of M. L. R. F. This book excited
much indignation in the persons commented upon, and La Rochefoucauld
hastened to deny its authenticity, alleging that but a fraction was his,
and that garbled. His denial was very partially credited, and has
remained the subject of suspicion almost to the present day. Probably,
however, he was warned by the incident of the danger of this sort of
contemporary criticism, and no authentic edition was issued. After his
death a new turn of ill-luck befell him. A fresh recension of the
Memoirs was published, not indeed quite so incorrect as the first, but
still largely adulterated, nor was the injustice repaired until 1817,
and then not entirely. It is only within the last few years that the
publication of the Memoirs from a manuscript in the possession of his
representatives has finally established the text, and that laborious
enquiries have demonstrated the conglomerate character of the early
editions (which were made up of the work of La Rochefoucauld, of La
Chatre, of Vineuil, and of several other people, even such well-known
writers as Saint Evremond being laid under contribution), and the
justice of the author's repudiation. The genuine Memoirs are, however,
extremely interesting; they are less full, and perhaps less absolutely
frank than those of Retz, but they yield to these alone of the Fronde
chronicles in piquancy and interest, while their purely literary merit
is superior. The strange bird's-eye view of conduct and motives which
characterises the Maxims is already visible in them, as well as the
profundity of insight which accompanies width of range. The form is less
finished, but its capacities are seen.

Jean Herault de Gourville stood to La Rochefoucauld in something like
the relation which Guy Joly bore to Retz, but was far more fortunate.
Born at La Rochefoucauld, without any advantages of family or fortune,
he began as a domestic of its seigneur. He passed from this service to
that of Con